Stressed borrowers risk Strategic's loan recovery
Receivers of Strategic Finance suggested 28 per cent of the company's borrowers are already in a stressed financial position.Of the 87 loans in the books of Strategic, 25 of them are either in liquidation, receivership or the property owned by the borrowers is in the process of being sold by the mortgagee, receivers John Fisk and Colin McCloy from PricewaterhouseCoopers said in their first report.The loan book stands at NZ$229 million and is the only major asset to repay 10,000 secured debenture holders who are due NZ$368 million, and 950 subordinated note investors who are owed NZ$22 million plus unsecured depositors totalling NZ$1.5 million. All of these holders are also together owed interest totalling NZ$54.7 million.More than half of the net loan book, or NZ$131.4 million, is secured by mortgage with a second ranking priority where first ranking debt totals around NZ$544 million, with just 42 per cent of the loan book secured by a first mortgage.Strategic's receivership announcement was made in March, nearly 15 months after a moratorium was placed on the company following a breach of its Trust Deed in August 2008. At the time of the moratorium it was envisaged that 100 per cent of the investors' principal plus interest would be repaid in due course. The receivers are now running a formal sales process to sell the loan book and haven't indicated what the potential recovery range may be. But judging by the state of the loan book, even a 50 per cent recovery for investors' funds seems optimistic at this stage.